H F Ahmanson Co

Ahmanson Unit Sells 26 Illinois Branches: Home Savings of America, the principal subsidiary of Irwindale-based H.F. Ahmanson & Co., said it sold the branches--with $1.5 billion in deposits--to LaSalle Talman Bank for about $127 million. The sale is part of Ahmanson's plans to focus its retail banking efforts in California, New York, Florida and Texas.

UCLA will announce today that it has selected former H.F. Ahmanson & Co. President Bruce G. Willison as the new dean of its business school, making him the latest prize in an effort by colleges to recruit leaders from the boardroom instead of the classroom.

While the concept of the ubiquitous bank branch may be going the way of the Pony Express, banking and economics experts predict that most San Fernando Valley consumers will still have ready access to cash and services. Eleven Washington Mutual branches in the Valley and nearby communities are scheduled to close by mid-1999 as a result of that company's acquisition of H. F. Ahmanson & Co., parent of Home Savings of America.

Ahmanson Gets OK to Buy First Interstate Branches: H.F. Ahmanson & Co., parent of Home Savings of America, said it won federal regulatory approval to buy 61 First Interstate branches from Wells Fargo & Co. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo agreed in March to sell the branches to Ahmanson to overcome regulators' antitrust concerns about its acquisition of Los Angeles-based First Interstate Bancorp, which was completed in April.

H.F. Ahmanson & Co., running out of time in its takeover battle for Great Western Financial Corp., will try to derail Washington Mutual Inc.'s rival bid in court today. Delaware Chancery Court has set a hearing on a request by Ahmanson to delay a shareholder vote set for June 13 on Washington Mutual's bid. Ahmanson claims Great Western violated its bylaws by setting the vote on the same day as a meeting to elect new directors. Ahmanson wants to elect three people backing its bid.

H.F. Ahmanson & Co. is giving more than 4,000 employees a special payout totaling nearly $3 million as thanks for helping the nation's No. 2 thrift beat its performance goal of 15% return on equity for 1997. The premiums, which average slightly less than $400, will go to all part-time and full-time employees who worked the entire year and are not already in regular bonus programs. Irwindale-based Ahmanson employs 9,000.

H.F. Ahmanson & Co. asked a Delaware court to stop Washington Mutual Inc.'s proposed purchase of Great Western Financial Corp., a thrift that Ahmanson wants to buy. The country's biggest thrift made the request in Delaware Chancery Court, where the company is also trying to force GW's board to drop its opposition to Ahmanson's $6.79-billion takeover bid.

Washington Mutual Inc. said it completed its $6.9-billion purchase of H.F. Ahmanson & Co., the Irwindale-based parent company of Home Savings. Washington Mutual, the largest U.S. savings and loan, now has $156.2 billion in assets and has extended its reach to more than 2,000 offices. The Seattle-based thrift entered California two years ago when it bought American Savings. It acquired Golden West Financial Corp. and Ahmanson shortly afterward. Ahmanson shareholders receive 1.

* Washington Mutual Inc.'s $6.3-billion purchase of H.F. Ahmanson & Co. was approved by shareholders of both companies. The transaction, which requires regulatory approval, would form the second-largest deposit holder in the western United States, behind BankAmerica Corp. The acquisition of Irwindale-based Ahmanson was valued at about $10 billion when it was unveiled in March. * * Incomnet Inc.

Opponents of the massive Ahmanson Ranch project are hopeful that Washington Mutual Inc.'s plan to purchase Home Savings of America will give them more opportunities to stop or amend the proposed $1-billion mini-city. "We're more hopeful now than at any point in the last 10 years," said Vince Curtis, board member of Save Open Space, a leading critic of the project east of Thousand Oaks.

Some people collect stuff, like baseball cards or fine art. Washington Mutual Inc. Chief Executive Kerry K. Killinger collects savings and loans, and he's elevated it to a fine art. In the decade since the securities-analyst-turned-banker became president of Washington Mutual, the Seattle-based institution has bought more than 20 other financial companies that have boosted corporate assets more than fourteenfold.

H.F. Ahmanson & Co.'s announcement Tuesday that it would sell its 109-year-old business to its chief rival was the all but inevitable aftermath of a battle it lost last spring, experts say. Hostile takeovers are rare in banking because bank franchises are too fragile for such rough treatment. Ask Wells Fargo & Co., which has had trouble hanging on to customers of First Interstate Bancorp after its nasty 1996 takeover.

Washington Mutual announced plans Tuesday to buy the owner of Home Savings of America for more than $10 billion, a stunning move that would result in the loss of up to 3,500 jobs and the closure of as many as 170 branch offices, most of them in the Southland. Seattle-based Washington Mutual, already the biggest thrift in the nation because of a spree of recent acquisitions, said it would acquire Irwindale-based H.F. Ahmanson through an exchange of stock valued at $10.

Charles Rinehart moved to H.F. Ahmanson & Co. as an outsider from the consumer finance industry, and he quickly set out remodeling its venerable Home Savings of America thrift to better compete in financial services by looking more like a bank. That same intense competition in the California market pushed Rinehart into putting Ahmanson up for sale. "Scale is critical to a company" in consumer banking, Rinehart said at a news conference.

News of Washington Mutual's proposed takeover of Home Savings of America left many customers weary and frustrated, although some held out hope that Washington Mutual will build on its Pacific Northwest reputation for providing good service and low fees. Relatively few customers interviewed Tuesday knew about Washington Mutual, which bought Irvine-based American Savings in late 1996 and Great Western of Chatsworth last summer.